George W’s Epiphany
January 6, 2010 > MAUI TODAY, > Maui Yesterdays, > mEnvironment No Comments |
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HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Mai Lepela: Leprosy PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — I save tumas: Wise HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “The disease that deprives one of relatives and friends.” HAOLE SAYINGS OF THE DAY — “Love your neighbor as yourself; but don’t take down the fence.” - Carl Sandburg
January 6, 2009: President Bush II Names New Pacific National Monuments. President George W. Bush designates vast tracts of American-controlled Pacific Ocean islands, reefs, surface waters and sea floor as marine national monuments, limiting fishing, mining, oil exploration and other commercial activity. At least he did one thing right in 8 years. More >
January 6, 1866: The first lepers are forced to move to Molokai.
The history of the Molokai Leper Colony at Kalaupapa causes a confusing and sometimes contradictory understanding of the peninsula. Today, there are people with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) still living in the colony, even though the disease is curable with antibiotics. The state of Hawaii has pledged to keep the colony open as long as the residents wish to stay, or until the last of them dies.
Such beneficence is a recent phenomenon. The most recent book covering this topic, The Colony, by John Tayman, was met with effusive critical success in book reviews and newspapers across the country, but was not well received in Hawaii. One possible reason: He lays bare the cruel nature of the colony, which was not nescessarily inspired by sadism, as this passage suggests:
“Doctors tried training patients to blink on schedule, using a timer or some other device. The technique worked in some cases, but only if the patient was physically able. Leprosy bacilli also attack the nerve controlling eyelid muscles, creating a condition known as lagophthalmos, in which the person is unable to close the eyelids. In such cases surgeons rigged a thread of muscle from the jaw to the lid, which caused the person to blink as he chewed – doctors then handed them a pack of gum.”
Still, it is true that if a person in Hawaii had leprosy, or was suspected of having leprosy, they were forced to the island of Molokai, taken there in restraints if necessary. Once banished to Kalaupapa, (for decades doctors just didn’t know who to treat it, or what the causes were), medical experiments were routinely performed on patients without their knowledge or consent. In many cases, patients were not told about surgeries they would undergo, nor informed that most were experimental procedures.
By the way, these forced experiments were especially common during Father Damien’s and Mother Marianne Cope’s time. Christianity, it seems, was as misguided as science in this case. Father Damien himself eventually contracted and died of Hansen’s Disease in 1889.
